HHS Senior College Survey

A few weeks ago, the Broadside conducted a survey pertaining to seniors and their college thoughts and preferences. This survey was meant to give insight to both the senior class and underclassmen as to what the thoughts of HHS seniors were. In total, 34 seniors responded to the survey. Here are the results:

Question: “How many schools are you applying to?”

From this survey, we found that the number of schools HHS seniors are applying to varies, but the most prominent groups are applying to seven to nine schools and one to three schools. No one who answered this survey is applying to zero schools, but this may be due to the fact that there is a limited sample size or people who were applying to zero schools simply didn’t respond to the survey.

Question: “Are you applying Early Decision to any school?”

Early Decision is a big commitment, and it may be that the senior class has mostly made the choice to sign off on their binding contracts. The 67.6% of people (23 students) applying Early Decision is a clear majority. However, this sample set is ignoring the people who are applying Restrictive Early Action (which is mutually exclusive with Early Decision), schools that don’t have Early Decision as an option, or other circumstances that would automatically make students not be applying Early Decision. 

Question: What is your top school?

The results for this question were vastly spread out, which is a testament to Hanover High School’s diverse student body. The top answers were Middlebury College, Yale University, and University of New Hampshire, all with 2 responses each. Only four out of 18 total unique colleges were out of the Northeast. There was only one person who said Brown University was their top school—the writer of this article.

Question: Do you think that, on average, students apply to too many schools?

This question was almost an even split, with 18 students responding Yes, and 16 students responding No. 

So, how does HHS compare to the national average? According to 2021 Common Application data, there were over six million applications processed and around one million unique applicants, so that equates to around six schools per unique applicant. This is relatively consistent with College Board recommendations, which suggest students apply to five to eight schools, being a mix of safety, match, and reach schools. However, this number may be too little or too many for any individual student. HHS students seem to be around what College Board suggests and around what the average is, with the mode of the dataset being 7-9 schools, and 47.1% of students apply from 4-9 schools. However, many people at HHS apply to far more than the average amount and the College Board recommended range.

And with that, the survey is over. Thank you to everyone who responded, and I hope that gave some insight into our senior class.